Voyage Through Their Minds
by Cumberbatch Critter
Summary: Their goal? To boldly go where no man has gone before. Their thoughts on their mission? Well, their thoughts obviously vary. Series of drabbles that will be character studies during certain moments in each episode of Season One. Will cover an array of characters for almost every episode. Obvious episode tags.
1. Where No Man Has Gone Before - McCoy

**Voyage Through Their Minds**

She doesn't look a day over twenty.

It's unbelievable because I've aged, even though I try not to think about it. Sure, I joke to Jim that I'm still the handsome medical cadet that I used to know, but doesn't everyone joke about their age? Their self-issued beauty?

But Nancy is not joking.

She doesn't even have to speak and yet it's there, radiating beauty and divinity and, oh, _why_ did I ever let this woman go? This mission is to mock me, surely.

_Leonard McCoy, look at what you could have had if you hadn't gone and decided to be a doctor. Now she's here, with this antisocial man, while you're out curing space-sickness and cutting tendrils of creatures out of people's torsos and being wrist-deep in blood and intestines. You could have had_ her_._

I sigh.

No, she doesn't look a day over twenty, but she is. We both are. And things may have been different in another life, but that life was not this one.

Here, I'm a doctor, not a romanticist.

I wouldn't trade it for the world.

* * *

**New series! So, I plan to go through the entire first season (and then possibly the second and third, depending on my level of dedication :p) of TOS, picking out certain moments and writing for them. I plan to do all but two or three episodes- there were a few episodes that I just didn't connect with- and some episodes will have more drabbles that I write- because I did connect more with some. Hopefully, I hit certain scenes that people would like to see the characters 'thoughts'. I'll be writing for McCoy, Jim, and Spock, obviously, with some cameos from Christine, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, and more.**

**I do not own _Star Trek_. Thank you!**


	2. Charlie X - Mr Spock

Jim and Doctor McCoy's insistence to have the strange boy aboard the ship is going to end in utter chaos. I'm not sure how I know this. There is no evidence that prompts such an irrational decision on my behalf, but it is merely a bad feeling. Being a Vulcan, I cannot act on such bad feelings until there is proof. I need logical proof before I can be sure that something unwarranted is going to happen.

Charlie's inhibitions are disturbing. Not only does he appear to have a general lack of knowledge about projected customs, he lacks the tact for social integration. Many on the ship seem unaware of how to converse with the child, as his unassurance and erratic idiosyncrasies make the rest of the _Enterprise_ uneasy to speak with him.

Then, there is the matter of the yeoman, Janice Rand. Jim does not seem to believe that it will be a problem- boys will be boys, I am sure that Jim is thinking- but I am not so sure. As with most of my thoughts about Charlie, I am hesitant to dismiss any misdemeanour.

In addition, Doctor McCoy has been insistent on the fact that the boy needs a father figure. Jim does not wish to become such a role model, even though it is plain that he already has, and keeps trying to push the child off to Doctor McCoy and myself. I find myself inclined to agree with the doctor that neither of us have the time to be a father figure for Charlie, nor the means. The doctor could explain better than I could, I am sure. He is human and experiences human norms everyday. I experience them everyday, but rarely understand the illogical qualities behind their actions. I could not explain, nor do I wish to be burdened with a young man. If I am to have a protégé, let it be at least someone who has more logic than this child appears to have.


	3. Charlie X - Jim

It's strictly impossible for me to form an emotional bond with the strange teenager called 'Charlie'. We have no way of knowing if he's good, if he's bad... but Bones says that he needs a father figure and that I'm that person.

Charlie looks up to me, but no more than a child would to any starship Captain. Surely he looks up to Mr Spock in such a way. Right? I have no time to take a child under my wing, even though some buried deep paternal side of me refuses to let it go.

Charlie's just a kid. He's confused. It's not the first time that a young man has been confused and it certainly won't be the last, but how is Charlie supposed to work through that without someone to help it?

But, it's not that _easy_. I'm Captain. I don't have time to chase after Charlie, teaching him right from wrong, about combat and women and life on earth.

As much as something in me craves _normal_, the _Enterprise_ is normal for me. She is my child, my love. She is my everything.

But still, just maybe...

To hell with it.

Charlie will listen to me, hang onto my every word. I can get through to him in ways that the rest of this crew can't and, since I'm Captain of a starship, I can take fifteen minutes from the Bridge to talk morality with a troubled young man. Right?

Maybe I'll never be a father, but perhaps this is my chance to act like one.


End file.
